Antigua counts 365 beaches. You are here for about seven days.
Which stingray trip leaves you real time standing in the water. What a day round the island under sail costs once lunch is on board. Whether Shirley Heights on a Sunday is worth giving up the afternoon for. Reviews of every tour you can book in Antigua and Barbuda.
01The water dayTurtle Beach Power Snorkeling AdventureTurtles feeding off Turtle Beach, reached by powerboat rather than a long slow motor out.
02The island dayScenic Full Day Tour of AntiguaOne loop of Antigua with the forts, the east coast and the rainforest road in it.
03The town dayCity Lime Food Tour: Taste our culture on Antigua’s only food tour in the city!Redcliffe Quay and the food streets behind it, on foot, in St John’s.
04The SundaySunset party at Shirley Heights – SHARE round tripSteel pan on the hill above English Harbour, with a seat on the transfer both ways.
Antigua sells its water three ways: a sandbar, a reef, or a deck.
All the beach and boat days →
The north-east shallows are warm enough to stand in for an hour. The reef off the south coast is close enough that the boat ride is short. And the island is small enough that a catamaran can go the whole way round it between breakfast and the evening. Those are the three decisions.
The sandbar off the north-east coast
A boat drops you on a sand shelf a long way offshore where the water still only reaches your ribs, and the rays come to be fed. Bring nothing you mind getting wet; the whole thing happens in the sea.
Cades Reef, Bird Island and the turtle ground
Antigua’s reef sits close in, so the boat time is short and the water time is long. Turtle Beach on the south coast is the reliable one for turtles; Cades Reef is the one for fish.
Round the island, lunch on board
The circumnavigation is the trip people talk about afterwards. You leave the sheltered side, get an hour of Atlantic swell on the east coast, and come back down the leeward side in flat water with a drink.
What fills up first in Antigua.
Every Antiguan tour we have reviewed →These carry more travellers than anything else here, and each one has a reason it keeps selling.
1
Adventure Antigua – The Xtreme Circumnavigation
Review of Adventure Antigua’s Xtreme Circumnavigation, with stingrays, snorkeling, beach lunch, history, costs, and practical tips.
From · $222
Read our review →
2
Turtle Beach Power Snorkeling Adventure
from $133
3
Scenic Full Day Tour of Antigua
from $143
4
Snorkel – Lobster Lunch Cruise to Bird Island and Paradise Reef
from $185
5
Adventure Antigua – Eli’s Original Eco Tour
from $143
6
Antigua Round Island Tour
from $94
7
Antigua VIP Tours – Private Platinum Tour
from $170
8
Private Snorkeling and Sightseeing Tour of Antigua
from $125
9
Nicole’s Table – All about Jerk
from $145
St John’s in the morning, the rest of Antigua after that.
Almost everything here runs from two places: the capital and its cruise quays, or a pickup somewhere out on the island. Six starting points, and the best day out from each.
Antigua past the beach: forts, rainforest and the road round the east coast.
The island is fourteen miles across and the interior is greener than the brochures let on. A morning buys you the dockyard at English Harbour, the mill towers at Betty’s Hope and a rainforest road that comes out at a beach on the other side.
What a day out in Antigua actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. The island is not cheap, but the gap between the bottom band and the top one buys you a very different day.
Transfers to the Sunday party, town walks, a taxi day and the short beach runs.
The standards: the sandbar, the reef trips, the round-island loop and the rum classes.
- 1Turtle Beach Power Snorkeling Adventurefrom $133
- 2Scenic Full Day Tour of Antiguafrom $143
- 3Adventure Antigua – Eli’s Original Eco Tourfrom $143
Private boats, the full circumnavigation and the days where the whole thing is yours.
Sunday evening on the hill above English Harbour is the island’s standing appointment.
Shirley Heights looks straight down onto the masts in Nelson’s Dockyard, and on a Sunday the steel pan starts in the late afternoon and the barbecue runs until dark. Getting up there is the whole problem: the road is narrow, the car park fills, and almost everyone books a seat on a transfer instead.
Three things that only happen in Antigua.
Warm sea and a rum punch are Caribbean standard issue. A sandbar you can stand on a mile out, a Georgian dockyard still full of working boats, and a Sunday night on a fort wall are not.
Stingray City
The sand shelf sits well out from the north-east coast, and the water over it stays shallow enough to stand in with your shoulders dry. Southern stingrays have been fed there long enough to come in close on their own. Boats run out from Seatons; the crossing is short and the hour in the water is the point.
- 1Stingray City Antigua for all the ages – ROUND TRIP INCLUDED★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 196 reviews
- 26-Hours Tour East Coast of Antigua: Stingray City, Lunch & Beach★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 109 reviews
- 3Stingray City experience, Devils Bridge and Long Bay Beach★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 59 reviews
Nelson’s Dockyard
English Harbour is the only Georgian naval dockyard anywhere still doing the job it was built for. The stone capstan house, the sail loft pillars and the officers’ quarters are all there, and so are the yachts, because the harbour is one of the safest hurricane holes in the eastern Caribbean. That is why it survived: it never stopped being useful.
- 1Historic City, Fort and Beach E-Bike Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 58 reviews
- 2Cultural and Historical Home Tour in The Antiguan Experience★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 56 reviews
- 3Antigua Historical Sites Island Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 41 reviews
Shirley Heights on a Sunday
The old lookout above English Harbour was built to watch for the French. Now it is a barbecue with a view down onto two harbours and a steel band that starts while the sun is still up. It runs every Sunday and, in the busier months, Thursday too. Go early enough to get the wall.
- 1Sunset party at Shirley Heights – SHARE round trip★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 71 reviews
- 2Taxi to Shirley heights lookout Sunday social package★★★★★★★★★★ 3.5 · 18 reviews
- 3Shirley Heights Sunset Party Taxi (Other packages are available)★★★★★★★★★★ 3.0 · 11 reviews
Four Antiguan bookings that will not wait until you land.
Most things here can be arranged over breakfast for the same afternoon. These four cannot: they run on one evening a week, one boat a day, or a station count that does not move.
- 01Sunset party at Shirley Heights – SHARE round tripThe party is a Sunday fixture, with a second night added in the busy months. Land on a Monday and the next one is six days away.
- 02Adventure Antigua – The Xtreme CircumnavigationOne boat, one departure, and a fixed day of the week. It is the most booked trip on the island and the seats are counted.
- 03Rum Making Masterclass Galleon Beach Antigua 2 People per StationThe class is built around a fixed number of stations, two people to each. When the stations are gone that sitting is gone.
- 04Stingray City Antigua for all the ages – ROUND TRIP INCLUDEDDepartures are tied to the tide and to how many ships are alongside in St John’s. On a heavy cruise morning the early slots go first.
What to do in Antigua on the day the boats stay in.
A winter groundswell out of the north can shut the east coast and cancel the small-boat trips at a few hours’ notice, and a squall in the autumn does the same. The island keeps working in both cases: the forts, the mill towers, the rainforest road and a kitchen are all indifferent to the sea state.
- 1Antigua Round Island Tourfrom $94
- 2Private Snorkeling and Sightseeing Tour of Antiguafrom $125
- 3Nicole’s Table – All about Jerkfrom $145
By place — the capital, the island, the coast
By kind of day — sandbar, reef, fort or kitchen
St John’s, the sandbar, English Harbour: the week almost everybody does first.
Shirley HeightsThe newest Antiguan tour reviews.
More new Antiguan reviews →
St. John’s City Private Tour including Fort James
Read our review →
Shore Excursion: City of St John’s Sightseeing Tour
Read our review →
Private Round Trip Transfer From Antigua Airport to St. James’s Club & Villas
Read our review →
